Looks like it was not intended by design, but I've managed to get the ultimate Red Dawn artifact on the 5th turn (e.g. very fast) during their Headquarters Assault. Only one person and one dog were killed. Amazing, isn't it?
Here is this short story...
Spoiler:
1998.03.02 04:00:00
The intelligence unit of "X-COM: Paranormal Security Agency" revealed the Red Dawn HQ on an island near Tiksi town in Russia. Agency's helicopter arrived near the HQ in the dark (at around 19:00 by London's time) and 6 figures descended onto a special guest area surrounded with wooden fence: three men, a woman, a dog and a robot on tracks. A lonely Red Dawn lad happened to be nearby as a greeter. He turned his back to the guests, unfortunately for him, and fell down.
The guest team hid inside their wood-fence bordered compound and sent out some illumination a.k.a. electro-flares. The roboscout and the dog were also send out. A couple of turns passed with the great human force with one machine gun, some SMGs and many, many incendiary grenades hiding behind the fence and the feeble scout team made erm, scouting outside. No enemies were seen, but a lot of door opening sounds were heard. Yeah, the underground base with the troops moving some levels lower than the guest team, right. But the HQ was also introduced by the intelligence as a heavily defended area... What's the trick?
Soon the trick showed itself. An armored car announced its presence with twin loud but inaccurate machine guns and was spotted in, erm, spot of light on the ground.
"What the hell, we have no tools for such an enemy!" a commander of the squad may had thought.
Was it this thought or another, but the guests began to retreat. No way, a magnum bullet came from the dark and downed the dog. The killer visited the place of crime, was spotted standing near the dog's corpse and was identified as a lonely Red Dawn Coordinator that needs some enlightenment. So, on the 4th turn the Coordinator (and the car) was set on fire and became very angry -- because the attackers hid!
On the 5th turn the lonely Coordinator was standing only three squares away from the wood fence, burning brightly in the night (the car also had advanced towards the fenced area but was burning farther away, at the distance of, like, 15 squares). He was surrounded by the three figures that jumped out and stroke him with heavy Xeno shields into full unconsciousness. They looted him, took him up and retreated -- all on the same 5th turn.
The flame on the car had not expired, the door-opening mega undeground force did not get near the guest land, the corpse of the dog did not get cold -- but the Helicopter somehow was filled with the returned team that exchanged the dog for the Coordinator, and the agents of the Agency started their trip back to their base.
The Coordinator brought with him The Red Dawn Memory Card that has a price of $100k on Gray Markets and is invaluable for the Agency in its mission of containing Red Dawn and other cults.
So, in short, I did not get much opposition at the HQ, and the Ultimate Red Dawn artifact was brought to me by the high-ranking Red Dawn, who advanced to my position alone, without support.
The question is -- is such a way of solving HQ problem a bug or a feature?
PS.
PPS. Sorry for grammar mistakes, the English is not my native language.
